Hiraeth, my Welsh roots are so deeply felt and activated within this word that a dear friend of mine recently sent my way. A word for what has been stirring within me and has left me curious, seeking, wondering, remembering, longing and imagining.
I have traveled places that I know with every fiber of my being that I have felt the cobblestones beneath my feet, smelled the lush juniper of the red, rock desert, jumped on a horse and rode effortlessly and knew how to paddle a canoe without a lesson. Previous incarnations of my soul peeking out of its amnesia just long enough to allow me to feel only so much because the ache can take me over. Longing for what, I cannot always comprehend, yet the nostalgia for ancient places returns and burns steadily within me.
As the months of November and December unfold I’m wondering if it might help to be able to return to such places that are nestled deeply within our core, our hearts. I found myself listening to several songs from Mannheim Steamroller, Christmas, that I played in my classroom when my students were knee deep in construction paper, glitter, glue and the holiday spirit. I remembered how it felt to share this safe haven with them, our classroom and felt a tiny spark ignite, something animating from within.
Loss is a home too, where our loves can be felt in the wind, and the rocks and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere.
Often we seek our beloveds who are no longer earth side in the places they inhabited. Clothing worn, objects they touched, creations of their hands left in kitchen drawers. I remember burying my nose deeply within my son’s beanie, longing to smell my son into being. My senses were learning how to remember, to hold him when he was no longer in his body. Over time a reassurance washed over me that when I could no longer access him outwardly that I would be shown a way. Much to my surprise because my heart felt so battered and bruised, did I come to discover that he had taken up a permanent residence within it. My heart had faithfully and tenderly housed him always and I had forgotten for just a time that I had a key.
I take my shelter with me wherever I go and I am so profoundly grateful to have found a home within the beauty and vastness of nature. She enfolds me like a mother bird does her wee ones in the softness of her feathered wings. Encouraging and growing my open heartedness. This is where I find solace, meaning, belonging and a depth of connection to all I share it with. Grace lives here and so do I.
I am drawn to this poem by Mary Oliver of being in her physical home and what she is noticing. Pure delight in the simple stirrings of her morning awakening and her heart receiving it. May we remember our homes, known and those temporarily forgotten and perhaps discover a patch of lush, verdant green there. A place where we can wiggle our toes, rest and unearth a fragment of ourselves waiting patiently to be found.
Though I have been scorned for it, let me never be afraid to use the word beautiful. For within is the shining leaf and the blossoms of the geranium at the window. And the eyes of the happy puppy as he wakes. The colors of the old and beloved afghan lying by itself, on the couch, in the morning sun. The hummingbird’s nest perched now in a corner of the bookshelf, in front of so many books of so many colors. The two poached eggs. The buttered toast. The ream of brand-new paper just opened, white as a block of snow. The typewriter humming, ready to go. ~ Just Around the House, Early in the Morning by Mary Oliver
(Sunrise on Maui, she's a show off and asks for my attention, isn't she simply other worldly?!)
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